Shana O. Kelley


Shana O. Kelley is a scientist and Neena B. Schwartz Professor of Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University. She is affiliated with Northwestern's International Institute for Nanotechnology and was previously part of the University of Toronto's Faculty of Pharmacy and Faculty of Medicine. Kelley's research includes the development of new technologies for clinical diagnostics and drug delivery. In 2023, she was chosen as president of Chicago's new Chan Zuckerberg Biohub.
𝕏 ShanaOKelley

Education and training

Kelley received her BS from Seton Hall University in 1994. She pursued graduate studies in chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, where she worked with Jacqueline Barton. She graduated with her PhD in 1999 with a dissertation entitled Electron Transfer through the DNA Double Helix: Spectroscopic and Electrochemical Studies.
From 1999 to 2000, Kelley was a NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at the Scripps Research Institute, where she worked with Paul Schimmel.

Career

Kelley began her independent research career as an Assistant Professor in the Chemistry Department at Boston College in 2000. In 2006, she was promoted directly to the rank of Full Professor and in 2007, she joined the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto. In August 2021, she joined Northwestern University's Departments of Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering as a named professor. It was announced in March 2023 that she would head the new Chan Zuckerberg Biohub in Chicago, which will be a collaboration between Northwestern, University of Chicago, and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Kelley founded a university spin-off company named GeneOhm Sciences with her graduate advisor Jacqueline Barton. GeneOhm Sciences was based on a discovery that Kelley made during her graduate studies, where she developed a method to detect mutations in DNA by modifying the DNA strands and measuring their differing conductivity. GeneOhm Sciences used Kelley's discovery to create a diagnostic test for antibiotic-resistant MRSA bacteria. GeneOhm was acquired by Becton Dickinson in early 2006. Kelley also founded the molecular diagnostics company Xagenic Inc. and the biomarker measurement company . In April 2023, she launched a new company, CTRL Therapeutics, which aims to improve existing cell therapy in cancer treatment by focusing on the CTRL gene.

Awards

Personal life

Kelley is married to fellow University of Toronto Professor Ted Sargent. They met at a nanotechnology conference at UC Irvine, and have two children together.